Online Shrine Visits in a Time of Social Distancing

The Meiji Jingu Shrine

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  The redesign includes a sleek new English page, with a bevy of guides to visiting the shrine, information about its history, and details on what you'll find when you arrive.

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  Including a page on how to, apparently, "feel Shinto" (the ancient Japanese religion).

Omikuji!

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  Despite only being on the Japanese-language page, they still have simple directions in English. "Click here for your virtual Meiji Jingu omikuji!"

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  Of course I had to try, so I clicked for my omikuji and... well, at first I was a little surprised with the results. Is this good luck or bad? What do those poems mean for my future?
  
  My overzealous omikuji clicking had gotten me confused, so I looked around the website some more, continuing my virtual visit, and learned an interesting fact: the omikuji at Meiji Jingu Shrine aren't fortunes at all! (Even when you get one in person.) In fact, instead of predictions for your future, the omikuji are printed with waka poems (和歌), which both Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken wrote in huge numbers (93,032 and 27,825, respectively). The poems people receive as omikuji, the shrine tells us, are a selection of the royals' most pertinent and meaningful pieces.
  
  While I can't say this poem struck me in any particular, life-changing way, it is a nice sentiment. And it was fun to see what my non-fortune omikuji would be without ever having to leave the house! Let me know what kinds of poems you get, too, on the Japankuru twitter, instagram, and facebook!